341 - Toooosday at the tower

Today was a wee bit warm. Ohmygod it was hot! The nice thing about working in the Tower is that it's kept so cold (presumably to keep the high number of walking dead from smelling too much) that I'm totally frozen by the end of the day. So when I pick up my stuff for the long trek back to my car, I'm numb. I don't even really feel the heat until I'm almost to my car. My toes are typically still frozen, and when I reach in my purse to grab my keys it's like a little ice box. heh.

I feel badly for the homeless when it's this hot, though. Apparently they've opened "Cooling Stations" for them. Which I assume is a lot like "Nashua's Air quality Days" where the bus is air conditioned and free to ride all day.

I spent the morning at home cleaning. I was PMSing so I needed something to do rather than wake up the family and yell at them. Went to the Tower and did a few useful things. Spent a few hours wishing I wasn't working. Went and had a talk with WebGirl. That woman is the most negative person ever. I knew she had gone away for the weekend, so I asked how her weekend was (I'm f*ckin' polite, ok!?)

• Me: How was your weekend? Did you have fun?
• WG: Yeah, it was great. Well... other than the hotel....
• Me: Oh really? Was it a bad hotel? (Knowing I'm about to get a long drawl-ey whine)
• WG: Well... I got a really good deal on a hotel and jumped on it. We were at Lake Tyler. Anyway, I went and although the Hotel was gorgeous and the service was great, they DIDN'T have a a pool! Can you imagine!? No Pool, No Restaurant!
• Me: Wow. Umm. Could you swim in the lake? (I'm thinking, wtf you moron, you stayed at a hotel on a lake... go outside and get in the lake!)
• WG: Noooo... I won't swim in that water!

Now obviously I wasn't going to ask the water retaining seacow WHY she would go to the lake if she had no intention of swimming in it.... but.... whatever. Maybe she's worried her bleach job will turn colors or something.

I walked over to Houston Center for lunch (Houston Center is a kind of crappy mall that's really only open because it's got a huge food court) Came back, wished for death for awhile longer, emailed asking for a few things from WG and another worker there. Stared out the window..... you seeing a pattern here?

I ended up coming home at 5:30. I made dinner and pretty much hung out. I sent my daughter out to get "Disturbia", but she left so darn late that I couldn't watch it *grr!*

SO funny - I send the kid out, she decides she's going to try Target again. She pulls out of our driveway and I'm up on the balcony with Ray yelling at her... I'm waving my arms and yelling "Chelsea No!!" Does she notice? No, she's 17. She wouldn't notice if her head was on fire. She pulled out onto our one way street heading the wrong way. *eyeroll* I'm seeing visions of my poor one headlighted car smashed up and my kid (un-hurt of course) telling me "I didn't knooow" (she has an excuse for everything that kid)

I took a bath . First time taking one in my enourmous bathtub. Ohmygod how great was that. The thing fills up to your neck practically. Its a big soaking tub that's soo comfy. That was way fun.

Well.... back to the Tower tomorrow. (someone kill me please)

342 - Money Monday - NOT

[WARNING: PISSED OFF RANT ABOUT TO ENSUE] Please please please tell me why my boss will not do a freakin' direct deposit!? WHY? I mean honestly, you can't go around talking about how 'we're an Internet company' and spouting about the latest technologies, then put a check in the mail, a check mind you, that WILL be held for 5-7 days because it's from NH. So I have to wait days for the damn thing to get here, then days for it to be useable?! Oh. Totally fanfuckin'tastic. *eyeroll*
Sweet fried Mary on a stick! Why not just use a chunk of bedrock, a big bird to chisel the amount on it and run it over here using a car with your feet poked through the bottom. ARGH! I've asked... I've hinted... I've begged, but I'm in Texas, so basically it's 'screw off'. Doesn't matter that I have bills to pay, car payments, a freakin' windshield that I didn't break to fix, a kid and me who needs friggin' meds which cost an arm and a leg..... wtf! I'm all for being a team player and all that, but at this point I'm just getting pissed.

Frustrated with my job, can you tell?

Ok... aside from that crap.

Chels, Ray and I went out to cash checks (ha!) and grab a light bulb for my headlight. Stopped at Sonic (yay!) and came home. For some reason my Internet connection here is iffy. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. It was a doesn't last night (Hence the morning post). We tried putting the bulb in the headlight, and got it in there, but it still doesn't work. It seems that there's some other issue. So there's another bill. grr.

Chels had a tweaky freak out over me not letting her go to some goth club by herself. *eyeroll* Her argument? Stomping around and whining "I'm not a baby anymore!" Umm.. Ok. Well there's a valid argument. Especially since I had to clean her disgusting bathroom this morning. How can she be here one week and totally demolish two entire rooms? for fucks sake. [END OF RANT: note: do NOT call me and try and 'talk' about this rant. No interest. I rant here because I don't feel like talking about it. Lets leave it that way.]

Things settled down late last night and it actually ended up being fun. Chels and I played Othello (which I like alot, but hate playing with Ray the strategical genius), we played with the kitten, who's simply a goofball. And I went to bed.

All in all a rather unsatisfying day.

Annoying Houston observation:
Houston has the worst... THE worst... public transportation. The fact that I can live this close to work and not be able to hop a bus amazes me.

343 - Sunday Lazy Sunday

Apparently there are no longer any Krispy Kreme donut places in Houston. Nope. My entire reason for moving here has now been taken away. Wtf.

I woke up this morning, did my normal morning ritual - Feed kittens, make coffee, make waffles, eat waffles, drink coffee, check email, watched Gardening by the Yard with Paul James (I so love this guy. Total goofball, but a genuine goofball, which I always like), Did laundry, cleaned stuff (which I love too), then did some Net surfing and reorganized my 'birthday wish list' on Kaboodle.

I got a chance to talk to Tony today. That was good. Sometimes I forget that I miss him. (I mean, really.. he's old and stinky and has the maturity of a 10 year old, why would I miss him!?) *snicker* Anyway... it was good to talk to him.
Chels, Ray and I had a ... erm.... washcloth fight. Well see, I tossed a rolled up paper towel at Ray then went upstairs to get ready to go out, where I was struck with the brilliant idea of folding up a washcloth and putting an elastic around it. I hid at the top of the stairs and tossed it at Ray, who whipped it back at me, so I tossed it at Chels, who I think tried to toss it back. Anyway... it went downhill from there. Fun tho :) I do so like to play.

Chels and I went out to go to Krispy Kreme. We parked downtown and walked up and down the pretty area of Main Street. There are SOO many cool restaurants down there. Anyway... couldn't find it so we went to CVS to grab some some Advil n stuff, and while we were there I asked the clerk if she knew where a Krispy Kreme was. "Krispy Kreme left Houston. We don't have any here"

*blink*

wtf.

Anyway... so after we cried and pulled our hair out, we stopped at CoCo's Crepes & Coffee and Ohmygoodness it was so good. I swear I'm gonna end up putting on weight instead of losing. (As a result I'm going to join Curves next week. There's one about 2 blocks away from my office. Of course, I probably will take issue with their teaching methods and all that since I had managed a few, but I'll get over it. heh.
Also, found a cool place to get my hair done; Venus Hair Salon. Looks just TOoo cool. I want this haircut I think. Gonna go ask about that. Leave me a message if you think it's simply too ghastly for me to get.

Tonight I made Chicken Parmesan.. supper yummy. I forgot the Parmesan cheese, so I sent Chels out to get it. She made it there and back and didn't get lost :) I'm so proud!

Since then we're just chillin'. Gotta work tomorrow, so that means I have to put aside time to weep while curled up in the fetal position.

Odd Texas Observation:
It's freakin' hot here.

346 and 345 - fa la la

Ok.. dont feel like posting much right now, but I found this and it's always been one of my favorite things ever! Had to share!

Cat Herder Commercial! Yes, this is what working in e-business is really like. Well.. maybe cat herding is a wee bit easier.

FRIDAY:

Friday was kinda blah. I was really feeling ill most of the morning and decided it would be in everyones' best interest to stay home and work from here.

I actually got more done than I usually do if I work from home, and I believe more done than I do when I go into work. So it was a productive day for me.

I did take a nap around noon. Woke up feeling a lot better, although not 100%. Problem being that the meds I take aren't fillable here, so I'm out of medication. bleh. I'm sending home my prescriptions and having the ex fill them (it's for me and for Chels) and in the meantime we'll have to make due. I wish my darn check would come so I can send him the cash for it too.. it's gonna be another week or so without them, and unfortunately I want to lay there like a lump without them.

I felt lots better by the end of the day. Funny little thing; We were all sitting here w/our laptops. The TV was off since Ray and I were working and didn't want the distraction. It started to rain, and Ray and I know that when it rains it gets loud in here because of the enormous skylight in the living room. Chels didn't know that.. so I noticed her looking around like "what the heck is that". I pointed up (as she was sitting directly under the skylight) and she said "Oh.. Rug?".

*blink*

Rug on the ceiling?! Well she thought the noise may have been the cat on the rug scratching it (which leads to a stern talking to for the cat). But Ray and I have had all sorts of fun with that. Pointing up and saying in a tard like voice "Ruuug". hehe... amusing for us, but it's bugging the crap out of the kid. Oooh the joys of being a parent.

Friday night we went to Sonic. Ohmygod it's so neat! Ok.. it's a fast food place, but you drive in and park and there's little ordering stations at all the parking spots. You order, they bring it out to you. SOO cool! I had been craving a corn dog (no, I have no freakin' clue why. Never had them until last October when Ray bought me one in Salem Mass, but damn they're yummy!) they have a gazillion different yummy drinks and shakes and slushes n stuff. Yumm!!

We drove from there into town to locate the library, which because we're uber-geeks, we need to know the location of at all times. Looks pretty good. It was closed, but we're going to go back and see about getting a card. Of course if you don't have a tx license, you have to pay $40.00 to get a card... so I'm not sure if we'll pay for the card then eventually get the licenses switched, or if we'll just wait for the switch before we get a card.

The whole license switching thing is a bit odd. I have to do it this month since my registration is due, but bleh. It's going to be super pricey. I'll deal with that next week I'm sure. I had allowed my insurance to lapse since re-upping would mean another 6 months with an insurance co. I'm not happy with. I didn't think it would be a problem, but apparently I can't get my car registered here w/out insurance (no surprise) and I can't get insurance here without a car registered IN Texas. SO... I have to go with my car and insurance in NH, change over the registration, then go to my insurance co and have them change my insurance to TX. Maybe. Could be I need to do it the other way around, but it seems damn near impossible to figure this out. I've called the DMV here about 15billion times, but apparently all DMVs are alike. You cant get the info you need without calling, but they don't actually answer the phone so you're kinda screwed. I swear I need to get a guide to help me with some of this crap.

Then I'll have to figure out the inspection issues. My damn windshield that's gonna cost me upwards of $400 bucks, my damn headlight which is gonna cost me about $200. argh. I had no clue relocating was going to cost me an arm and a leg. Thank goodness the place is paid for or I'd be totally screwed.

SATURDAY:

Saturday was fun :) I went with the blog poll and Chels and I went to Westhiemer to hit all the cool retro/recycled clothing stores. Ohmygod so awesome! Within a one block radius theres 5 places to go. I was kind of lamenting the loss of The Garment District in Boston. That place is so great. Well here there are 5 of them (not quite as large, but very much like it) right next to each other. I ended up buying two pairs of THE coolest retro huge sunglasses. Love'em. Chels bought a few things as well. Unfortunately, as with alot of sunglasses, they make me seasick. argh. Everything makes me freakin' seasick! So both pairs are gonna have to go up on Craigslist. I'm SO sad about that :/

On the way home we stopped at "The magic cauldron", which is a neat Pagan shop. We walked in and the funniest little guy was in there behind the counter. Utterly gay, totally adorable, and very quirky. Chelsea was wearing a skirt she had made that has the Virgin Mary on it. It always amuses me since the face is on the crotch and butt of the skirt. heh. Well the guy seemed to think that was hysterical. He was a constant mass of giggles and laughing. We actually had a fun time with him and Chels was really excited since he said he was looking for a seamstress to help with cloaks and such for the TX Ren Faire. She's going to bring him some samples of her work and see if she can hook up a job there.

We left there and came home. We were actually planning on hitting the trendy little crepe place nearby, but realized it was 5pm and maybe the Hubby would want food too. (damn demanding fella, isn't he?!) So we came home, grabbed the guy and went off to La Mexicana, a nice place on Westheimer. We sat out on their patio and had a great mexican dinner (Mexican, not TexMex which I'm finding simply does not agree with me). The food was great and came in HUGE portions. The outside patio was great. It's covered and surrounded by nice shrubs, so you don't feel like you're almost sitting in the street. We really loved the place. (The inside is, btw, very loud like we're finding most places are here. Odd, but it seems every restaurant we go to is super loud inside. Echo-ey almost.)

We came home and hung out. Nothing major :)

Nice day over all.

347 - blablahblah

Alrighty.. today wasn't too bad, really. The morning started out a bit wacky, but it ended up ok.

First thing this morning I went and checked to see if Mr. Possums was still sitting out there on the nest. (Did I write about that last night? I can't recall... before bed last night I went out to see if the possum was ok. I know I wrote that he was, and that there wasn't a 'mommy' with him, but I can't recall if I said what I thought was another fuzzy animal was actually a birds nest that he was sitting in.) Anyway, the little guy must of got down ok. I checked around the bottom of the telephone wire and didn't see any little hurt possum... so I'm thinking he made it down alright.

Made it work, ended up in a few meetings. One was with the mother-ship. *sigh* It's not that I don't want to be involved with whats going on back home.. it's that.. well.. I'd like to freakin' HEAR what's going on. I could only catch like every 3 or four sentences, so I lost most of what was going on. I'm sure that this was something I maybe should have heard most of... but I didn't. So I'll go off of what I did hear and hope it's ok.

I made it home in record time. Grabbed the fam and went to the bank and to grab some stuff at the store. Oh.. cool store thing.. Ever seen those little dvd kiosks? So cool. I never really investigated one before, but while I was waiting for everything to be rung up tonight I took a peek. Not bad! I paid 1.61 for "Crank"... the movie popped out and there we go. (Watching it now btw, lots of derty stuff in it... it's good! heh)

So we ate dinner, I did some work on a methodology thing *snore-snooze* and then Chels told me that she wants to go to Target (argh). So she said she wanted to go by herself. Swore to me she'd make it. meh. I let her go, sure I'd get a call in a while saying she was lost (because seriously, this place is freakin' hell to drive in!) No call.. I was outside on the balcony and she came down the street. Surprised the heck outta me. I thought "sheesh Jenna, real nice being sure your daughter wouldn't be able to make it to Target." she came out to tell me that I need to go with her... she had spent the last hour lost. heh. Poor thing. I was impressed she made it back though. Although the really funny thing was her reaction to me and Ray poking fun at her. *snicker*

But that's really it for the day. Nothing interesting. Nothing amusing. Just blah blah blah.

Sad Texas Observation with a hint of introspection:
There are so many homeless here. And rather than feeling a call to action, some sort of "I should do something" like I always feel when I see animals in need I get really pissed with them. We've all had hard times. Trust me, I think there were times I was just one or two bad days away from *being* them. But honestly. They piss me off. I don't want to give them change, or ciggs, or listen to them babble... I want to tell them to get away from me. I'm embarrassed about it, but I have no plans on changing it.

348 - Smoke n Fire

Hey... the building next door to me caught fire last night... This is the building I took pictures of the psycho window washers on:

KHOU News Story

Pictures

Bringin' my camera to work... I'll take any interesting pictures I can.

Well, no interesting pictures to take of the burned building. You can see that one or two of the windows were broken, but that's about it.

Today was pretty good. I had a lot of work to do so I kept busy. I SO like being kept busy. Idle hands, and all that.

I got a nasty gram from WebGirl. Apparently she didn't like that I had sent "thanks for meeting with me" emails with out CC'ing her. No biggy. I just rolled my eyes, wished horrid things upon her overly bleached head, and moved on.

After work was a bit stressful. I had barely any gas on the way home and was already a bit late, so I decided to drive to Montrose St. to get some gas. Unfortunately some inconsiderate schmuck had the grand idea of getting into an accident. So I got stuck in traffic for like 20 minutes. dammit. I finally got turned around and started my search for a gas station. That would be my luck, running out of gas on my way to get gas. "Isn't it Ironic?" (BTW Alanis, a black fly in your Chardonnay is NOT ironic, it's unfortunate you ignorant cow. Look up irony in the dictionary.) .... but I digress...

So I finally found a gas station, realized I had no cash and had to put gas on my credit card. I HATE that. I also hate ending up behind the damn ticket scratchers in line. wtf. Get out of line, scratch your ticket, then on the off chance you may win something Bubba, you may get back in. Sheesh. So I get out of there and start walking to my car and there's a bum standing behind it with a window washer. Simply shit-tastic.

I walk towards the car and the guy starts babbling;
"Oooh it's a sad Tuesday, huh? I'll clean your window, make it a happy Tuesday. Make you smile on Tuesday. I'm Georgie, Georgie will make your window clean. Then you won't be sad"

I'm thinking "For fucks sake, Georgie... I'm sad 'cus I have Georgie the hygienically challenged homeless guy about to slime up my back window and I don't have any change".

"Georgie" I say "I have no money... you probably have more change than I do".

"Ohh no no missus.. I clean tha window n make happy Tuesday!"

"Fine Georgie, but not a big return on investment, yanno?"

So I pump the gas while Georgie squeegees my window and wipes it down with a newspaper, and when I'm done I hand him 5 ciggs and leave it at that.

He tells me "Georgies' here all the time! Come back n get gas again"

"Thanks Georgie, I'll keep that in mind"..... the next time I want Georgie rubbing dirty newspaper all over my rear windshield. *sigh*... btw... it's freakin' Wednesday!!! Ehh well.. Suppose time is all relative when you're squeegeeing windows.

So I finally made it home. Now it's too late to get to the bank, but Hubby and Kid are in good moods, so that's cool.

Made dinner, vacuumed and cleaned a bit, ate... then kid has to remind me that I told her I would let her drive tonight. Meh. I swear I have palpitations every time I have to drive with her. So we go off to Target, I start getting acute angina (Doesn't angina sound dirty?) but we make it there and back.

I poked around with some graphics for awhile. I was feeling creative. Made a new header. You'll have to let me know if you like it.

So as I was about to post Ray went out on the balcony. He sticks his head out and says "Y'all come out here, there's a possum on the wire!" Yes. He said Y'all.

So out we go and whaddya know.. there's a little possum walking the telephone wire. Poor little guy got pretty far, then stuck, then came back, then got stuck again... we think that his mamma is stuck too. So now we're sitting here trying to figure out if we should call Animal Control. I suppose we could, but how Yankee will we sound??!

"Hey, Umm... yeah.. there are two possums on the telephone wires out here and they look stuck"

You know they'll be like... Yeah, that happens all the time. What are you, the new guy?!

meh. btw... big blobby red picture is the best I could get of the possum.

Ok.. off to bed for me ;)

P.S. - Possum Update:
Possum wasn't out there with with his mama. He is stuck though. He's sitting out there on a nest.

349 - School Days?

Ever have to change schools when you were a kid? Ever have to be the new kid in the class? If you have, try and remember having to walk into the lunch room the first time. You don't have anyone to sit with, and you feel like you're walking around with a sign that says "Friendless". You want to sit towards the back, or in a corner somewhere. Maybe you have a book or a walkman with you so that you can seem to not be paying attention to the stuff going on around you. That so sucks when you're a kid.

The odd thing is this; it doesn't go away with age. Sure you're fairly self assured, you know that you're an asset, you know your place in the world (or so you believe) - yet faced with being the new kid again it seems that some part of your brain pops back into that lunch room. Why is that? It's irritating.

Work was... boring. Bone numbing, eye twitching, life sucking boring. There were a few interesting points, though;

1. Not sure if I've told you, but my badge doesn't work on the back door of the tower. The back door goes out to the pretty sitting area where all the smokers go. Well apparently you have to have 'after hours' priv's. put on your card to do that... and I haven't figured out where Security is to do so. SO... I asked WebGirl where I could have that fixed. She said "Who told you that?" while grimacing and making some odd "I'm sucking on a lemon" face. I said "Oh, one of the svp's on 41" She said "Pfft... they dont know what they're talking about. I've never heard that before".

Well ok.. whatever. BUT.. today as I was sitting out under one of the umbrellas having a ciggy, I notice WebGirl hop over the gate to the back and sprint towards the door. Apparently she was off doing something and decided to take that way in. I watched her pull on the door for a minute (ahhh-musing!) then watched her repeatedly try her badge, then pull the door. This went on for like 5 minutes. I had my sunglasses on so I looked as if I was checking out my phone, but inside I was cackling wildly. I SO wanted to run up and say "Who was it that didn't know what they were talking about? Hmm? Nyaaah!" But of course that wouldn't be very professional, so I simply saw that one of the other doors was opening (someone coming out) so I got up, grabbed that door and yelled for WebGirl. She came striding over looking as if there was a very small piece of poop held under her nose. "Something wrong with my badge!" I said "Apparently, mine too" and left it at that. Made me grin, though.

2. One of the big NH guys came into the office today. He hangs in my office when he's working in TX. That was kinda nice. Someone to talk to at least. Not a bad guy really. He bought me lunch today. Sammich makes me happay!

3. I got a lot done today. Pried the written notes I needed from WebGirls clutches (She SO didn't want me to have them) and have 1/2 written up. Worked out a process for some of the content peeps. blah blah blah.

When I got home I cleaned a bit (yeah, I'm a bit obsessive) did the dishes and cooked meatloaf (my family loves it). We went to Randall's since there were a few things we needed, and luckily they had the movie "300" there. Ohmygod Yay. Tomorrow we'll probably run out and get "Hot Fuzz" Yay again :) Great movies. I would say that 300 is one of the best movies I've seen in ages. Watched that on our disgustingly huge tv. Now I'm getting sleepy and I wanna go to bed :/

A "little" bit of odd news I just saw:
Midget Star from Little People, Big World Arrested for DUI Yeah, I know... but seriously, the world needs more drunken midgets. (in big hamster wheels in the office... or with little strap-on cake plate hats wandering from desk to desk offering yummy frosted baked goods)